The Talk, Not THAT Talk
by Calie1
Summary: Connor finally talks to his dad about what happened in the past. Love Over Time universe.


Notes: Part of the Love Over Time universe. Please refer to my profile for the correct order.

* * *

"Can I ask you a question?"

Oliver sighed, dropped his arm onto his bent knee and turned to look behind him. "You destroy my bike and now you want to talk my ear off?"

"I said I'd help," Connor said with a frown. His father shook his head, turned and continued taking apart the bike. "How was I supposed to know he was that strong?"

"Connor..."

Connor bit his tongue, deciding this one time to take his father's warning and not push it. If he did he probably wouldn't get the answers he sought. "So can I ask you something?"

"Do I have a choice?" Oliver pulled off the bent piece of his bike and frowned. With a shake of his head he tossed the destroyed piece to the side.

"No."

Rolling his eyes at his son's quick response Oliver couldn't help but be reminded how much Connor was like Chloe. "Then I don't know why you bothered asking."

For a moment Connor sat in silence, watching his father work. For a brief moment he forgot the questions he had for his father and instead tried to imagine the hours he'd spend, just watching him over the years in the garage fixing up bikes. It was their time, uninterrupted by the outside world. Of course his time with his mother was spent in much of the same way. Connor would linger behind her, watching her tap away on keyboards. When he was much younger she even set him up a small little station of his own with his own computer and games to play. At the time he hadn't understood what it was his mother was doing and he hadn't cared, he was just grateful he could pretend to work just like her.

"I thought you had a question."

Connor shook his head, focusing on the back of his father's head. The blond hair was slightly tinged with grey, not much though. His father's age didn't concern women though. In fact, girls his own age commented all too often about how attractive his father was; it was disgusting. "You know you and mom skim over a lot of details before I was born. I mean, I get bits and pieces here and there...but you've only told me a little bit of how you got together."

For a moment Oliver faltered, paused in his work and stared ahead at nothing in particular. "We told you what happened. Death makes you reconsider certain things." Blinking several times and shaking off the familiar feeling that he received every time he recalled that night, he turned back to his work.

"And I get that, but I saw what it was like before then, and I don't get it." Connor heard heard his father sigh, but he wouldn't be deterred. "I mean people change over time, I get that. But didn't you love each other? What was so bad?"

"It wasn't that easy."

Connor groaned and pushed himself off the table he was sitting on. "Okay fine, but what was the problem. The two people I saw a week ago, they didn't seem like two people that wanted to be with one another. What was the problem?"

"Connor, I don't think you really want all the details."

"Yes, I do. You always tell me it's none of my business. And you were right. But I saw what you and mom were like, and I need to understand now."

Oliver frowned, vaguely recalling what it was like when Connor had come to the past, trying so insistently to persuade him and Chloe that they were meant for each other. "Neither one of us were in a good place after Doomsday," Oliver began. "She shut herself up and I fell off the wagon, and even after I was back on we weren't back to normal. And things between us..." Oliver paused as he tried to find a way around revealing to his son that him and his mother only had sex together. "We didn't have a normal relationship before you showed up. Neither one of us were wanting to get involved emotionally."

"Not get involved emotionally?" Connor asked in confusion. "I mean why even get into a relationship if you didn't want it to be about-" He stopped, his mouth gaping open. "You didn't."

Oliver rolled his eyes and grabbed for the wrench on the floor. "Don't be so shocked. Your mother wasn't a nun and I was a bit of a ladies man throughout my twenties."

"Yuck." He's heard his mother tease his father on quite a few occasions about how often his picture showed up on the society pages with a different girl on his arm every time. Connor had always assumed what happened behind the scenes, but he hadn't wanted confirmation. "You know, I didn't need to know you slept around."

"You asked," Oliver said with a shrug, and pulled off another part to his bike and tossed it to the side.

"I asked about you and mom. I didn't know you two were friends with benefits. That I didn't need to know. I mean that's mom...how could you just...uh!" Connor jammed the heels of his hands into this eyes, trying to wipe the thought from his mind. "God!"

"Stop being so dramatic." Oliver grabbed a rag and wiped his hands. With a groan he pushed up off the floor and turned to face his son. "The point is it turned into something more, something we didn't want, and we walked away."

Relieved to finally be moving on from the talk of his parents and sex, but finding himself with more questions at his father's response, Connor pushed on. "Why?"

"Like I said, we were in a bad place. Your mother was all about saving the world, no matter the consequences to herself. Plus, she'd seen the man she loved get murdered, she didn't want another relationship."

"And you?"

With a sigh Oliver combed through his short hair. "I was finally on my own two feet again, I didn't want any distractions. I had responsibilities as Oliver Queen and the Green Arrow, my own wants and needs didn't matter."

Connor thought over his father's words as he turned around and walked over to one of the tool boxes. His parents had only ever talked about when they got together, they never before had mentioned their brief romance and separation that preceded it. "What happened after I left?"

At Connor's question Oliver sighed, resisting the urge to pinch his nose. Bringing up the past was always a sore subject. There were lots of things everyone wanted to forget. Oliver's actions after Connor left was one of them. "I told her I couldn't give her what she wanted, and I walked away."

"Just like that?" Connor asked, taken aback by his father's simple answer. "That's it?"

"That's it," Oliver said in a clipped tone.

"I mean after all I said about the future, after mom almost died, after the two of you admitted that you cared about each other, you just walked away that easily?" The drawer to the tool box shut loudly and his father yanked open another. Connor knew when to back off, his father had the tendency to get wound up easily, at least more so than his mother, but this was one of the cases that he wouldn't. "How could you just walk away? I mean not even try? I could not be standing here right now."

"Dammit Connor." Oliver slammed the metal drawer closed and turned to face his son. "I told you why. And yeah, it was stupid. I rate that day up there as one of the dumbest mistakes I ever made. Because I was fucking miserable for the next two months. Landing on rooftops to check on your mom because your Uncle Clark said she wasn't doing well." Forcing himself to take a deep breath to calm himself, Oliver continued, this time in a lower tone of voice. "I thought I needed to let her go, be the Green Arrow and Oliver Queen. At that point, being in a relationship was a distraction. Little did I know I was more distracted away from her."

"And then you got shot," Connor finished up for him. "That's what changed it."

"The possibility of death usually helps put things in perspective."

"And a future son doesn't?" Connor pointed out, cocking an eyebrow and hoping that his father would try disagreeing.

Oliver immediately relaxed, grateful to see the discussions coming to an end. It was a time in his life he didn't like to remember, and he avoided talking about it as much as possible. "Good point."

"Mom said dinner's almost ready! And that you guys better not be-" the blonde girl yelled as she ran into the garage, stopping short when she spotted her father, "-dirty." Turning her eyes to the bike she frowned. "What did you do?" She asked and turned to Connor. "Drive it into a wall?"

"Shut up." Connor grabbed one of the greasy rags and tossed it at her face.

"Connor..." Oliver warned and turned to his eleven year old daughter. "I'll take a shower."

"Mom _said_ not to get dirty." She pointed out, cocking an eyebrow.

"Yeah LIzzy, I know." Grabbing the hem of his t-shirt he yanked it over his head and tossed it to the side. "She'll get over it."

"Considering how much I like my men shirtless and covered in grease I just might," Chloe said with a grin as she came up behind Lizzy. At the sound of a gagging sound she glanced down at her daughter and tapped her shoulder. "Stop being rude."

"No PDA, please," LIzzy said and pretended to shiver.

Ignoring Lizzy's usual preteen reactions to anything and everything lately, Oliver raised his eyebrows in question at Chloe. "Men? Plural?"

"Just one, you're more than enough man for me," Chloe said with a smirk. "I might even let you get away with not having a shower."

Connor groaned and turned away from his parents. "Come on," he said to LIzzy and gave her shoulder a gentle shove, "I really don't want to lose my appetite before dinner."

"Why do the two of you have to be so gross!" Lizzy called behind her as she shoved Connor in the stomach and took off ahead of him.

As the door shut behind Connor and Lizzy, Chloe slowly grinned. "Are we that bad?"

"Maybe..." Oliver said with a smirk and closed the distance between them. Reaching out with one filthy hand he looped a finger through the belt loop of her shorts and pulled her closer. "Just a bit."

"Well, I can't help it." Raising one hand she pressed the tip of her finger in the center of his chest and drug it down, noting the slick feel of his chest against her finger. She noted the soft rise of his pecks, the hardness of his chest and sculpted abdomen. When she reached the button of his jeans she slid her finger in-between his jeans and his lower stomach. "If you didn't stay so sexy."

"Well you know," he released the belt loop and wrapped his hands around the back of her thighs. As he lifted her she gasped softly, wrapping her arms around his neck, "the feeling is mutual."

"Right." Squeezing her legs tightly around his waist she dropped her forehead against his own. "The shape my body is in and yours is a different story. Two children tend to leave their mark."

"Hush," he demanded softly and claimed her lips with his. Her response was immediate, as it always was. Pulling away slightly, but not removing the hand he had buried in her blonde hair, he nudged his nose with hers, waiting for her green eyes to meet his own. "At least you aren't over the hill yet."

Grinning at his words she pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose. "Don't they say older men are sexy?"

"I think you're trying to humor me." Her smile widened and then her arms loosened from around his neck. When he felt her palms pressing against his cheeks he let his eyes travel over her face, looking for whatever changed the moment from a playful one to one that was much more intimate. There was no clue though, only confirmation as her smile softened. "I love you."

They were words she had heard thousands of times, yet she still couldn't help but smile wider at his proclamation. "I love you too." Grasping his face tighter in her hands she leaned forward and kissed him again before loosening her legs from around his waist. Her descent to the ground was slow and Oliver didn't release her to both feet were properly planted on the cement. "Come on Mr. Queen, let's get you in the shower." Taking his hand in hers she gave it a gently tug before turning and heading for the door.

With one stop he closed the distance between them and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her back against him, pressing his growing erection against her backside. "I think I've gotten you sufficiently dirty haven't I?"

Warmth spread through her lower body at his low suggestive words and the hardness pressed against her. "Very, very dirty."

Sliding his hand higher he cradled one breast in his hand and brushed his thumb over her nipple. "Then maybe you need a shower too," he whispered in her ear and then dropped his lips to her neck, nudging it slightly to get her to tilt her head to the side and give him access.

"The kids..." Chloe let her lids fall closed at the feel of his lips against her neck. "And dinner..."

"We can eat later," he mumbled against her neck. "And the kids are old enough to eat on their own."

She smiled at his reasoning and stepped away, turning her head behind him. "Well then let's get going Romeo."


End file.
